Interacting electrons in graphene nanoribbons in the lowest Landau level

We study the effect of electron-electron interaction and spin on electronic and transport properties of gated graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) in a perpendicular magnetic field in the regime of the lowest Landau level (LL). The electron-electron interaction is taken into account using the Hartree and Hubbard approximations, and the conductance of GNRs is calculated on the basis of the recursive Greens function technique within the Landauer formalism. We demonstrate that, in comparison to the one-electron picture, electron-electron interaction leads to the drastic changes in the dispersion relation and structure of propagating states in the regime of the lowest LL showing a formation of the compressible strip and opening of additional conductive channels in the middle of the ribbon. We show that the latter are very sensitive to disorder and get scattered even if the concentration of disorder is moderate. In contrast, the edge states transport is very robust and can not be suppressed even in the presence of a strong spin-flipping.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Plasmons in dimensionally mismatched Coulomb coupled graphene systems

We calculate the plasmon dispersion relation for Coulomb coupled metallic armchair graphene nanoribbons and doped monolayer graphene. The crossing of the plasmon curves, which occurs for uncoupled 1D and 2D systems, is split by the interlayer Coulomb coupling into a lower and an upper plasmon branch. The upper branch exhibits a highly unusual behavior with endpoints at finite $q$. Accordingly, the structure factor shows either a single or a double peak behavior, depending on the plasmon wavelength. The new plasmon structure is relevant to recent experiments, its properties can be controlled by varying the system parameters, and be used in plasmonic applications.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; in press in Phys. Rev. Let

Conductivity of epitaxial and CVD graphene with correlated line defects

Transport properties of single-layer graphene with correlated one-dimensional defects are studied using the time-dependent real-space Kubo-Greenwood formalism. Such defects are present in epitaxial graphene, comprising atomic terraces and steps due to the substrate morphology, and in polycrystalline chemically-vapor-deposited (CVD) graphene due to the grain boundaries, composed of a periodic array of dislocations, or quasi-periodic nanoripples originated from the metal substrate. The extended line defects are described by the long-range Lorentzian-type scattering potential. The dc conductivity is calculated numerically for different cases of distribution of line defects. This includes a random (uncorrelated) and a correlated distribution with a prevailing direction in the orientation of lines. The anisotropy of the conductivity along and across the line defects is revealed, which agrees with experimental measurements for epitaxial graphene grown on SiC. We performed a detailed study of the conductivity for different defect correlations, introducing the correlation angle alpha_max (i.e. the maximum possible angle between any two lines). We find that for a given electron density, the relative enhancement of the conductivity for the case of fully correlated line defects in comparison to the case of uncorrelated ones is larger for a higher defect density. Finally, we study the conductivity of realistic samples where both extended line defects as well as point-like scatterers such as adatoms and charged impurities are presented.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Interactions and screening in gated bilayer graphene nanoribbons

The effects of Coulomb interactions on the electronic properties of bilayer graphene nanoribbons (BGNs) covered by a gate electrode are studied theoretically. The electron density distribution and the potential profile are calculated self-consistently within the Hartree approximation. A comparison to their single-particle counterparts reveals the effects of interactions and screening. Due to the finite width of the nanoribbon in combination with electronic repulsion, the gate-induced electrons tend to accumulate along the BGN edges where the potential assumes a sharp triangular shape. This has a profound effect on the energy gap between electron and hole bands, which depends nonmonotonously on the gate voltage and collapses at intermediate electric fields. We interpret this behavior in terms of interaction-induced warping of the energy dispersion.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Electron polarization function and plasmons in metallic armchair graphene nanoribbons

We calculate the polarization function of Dirac fermions in metallic armchair graphene nanoribbons for an arbitrary temperature and doping. We find that at finite temperatures due to the phase space redistribution among inter-band and intra-band electronic transitions in the conduction and valence bands, the full polarization function becomes independent of the temperature and the position of the chemical potential. As a result, for a given width of nanoribbons there exists a single plasmon mode, with the energy dispersion determined by the graphene's fine structure constant. In Coulomb-coupled nanoribbons, this plasmon splits into the basic in-phase and out-of-phase plasmon modes, with the splitting energy determined additionally by the inter-ribbon spacing.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; in press in Phys. Rev.

Influence of correlated impurities on conductivity of graphene sheets: Time-dependent real-space Kubo approach

Exact numerical calculations of the conductivity of graphene sheets with random and correlated distributions of disorders have been performed using the time-dependent real-space Kubo formalism. The disorder was modeled by the long-range Gaussian potential describing screened charged impurities and by the short-range potential describing neutral adatoms both in the weak and strong scattering regime. Our central result is that correlation in the spatial distribution for the strong short-range scatterers and for the long-range Gaussian potential do not lead to any enhancement of the conductivity in comparison to the uncorrelated case. Our results strongly indicate that the temperature enhancement of the conductivity reported in the recent study (Yan and Fuhrer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 206601 (2011)) and attributed to the effect of dopant correlations was most likely caused by other factors not related to the correlations in the scattering potential.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figure

Plasmon-mediated Coulomb drag between graphene waveguides

We analyze theoretically charge transport in Coulomb coupled graphene waveguides (GWGs). The GWGs are defined using antidot lattices, and the lateral geometry bypasses many technological challenges of earlier designs. The drag resistivity $\rho_D$, which is a measure of the many-particle interactions between the GWGs, is computed for a range of temperatures and waveguide separations. It is demonstrated that for $T>0.1T_F$ the drag is significantly enhanced due to plasmons, and that in the low-temperature regime a complicated behavior may occur. In the weak coupling regime the dependence of drag on the interwaveguide separation $d$ follows $\rho_D \sim d^{-n}$, where $n \simeq 6$.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Generic suppression of conductance quantization of interacting electrons in graphene nanoribbons in a perpendicular magnetic field

The effects of electron interaction on the magnetoconductance of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are studied within the Hartree approximation. We find that a perpendicular magnetic field leads to a suppression instead of an expected improvement of the quantization. This suppression is traced back to interaction-induced modifications of the band structure leading to the formation of compressible strips in the middle of GNRs. It is also shown that the hard wall confinement combined with electron interaction generates overlaps between forward and backward propagating states, which may significantly enhance backscattering in realistic GNRs. The relation to available experiments is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure